Larry L. King Dies, Prompting Larry King to Tweet He's Alive Following Confusion

Dec 21, 2012 07:13 PM EST

Former CNN anchor Larry King tweeted to his followers on the social networking site to confirm that he is still very much alive after fans got him confused with a famed playwright with a similar name, Larry L. King, who died on Thursday.

Many users on Twitter mistook the playwright for the CNN anchor and starting tweeting that King, the broadcaster, died instead.

Larry L. King, the writer whose magazine article about the popular Chicken Ranch bordello's last days was the basis for the musical and a movie, died Thursday. He was 83.

His wife, Barbara Blaine, said King died after battling emphysema at Chevy Chase House, a retirement home in Washington where he had been living the past six months, according to the Associated Press.

"One of the things that I will always remember about Larry is that he remained funny all the way through this illness," she said.

King is probably most well known for his book, "The Best Little Whorehouse" which propelled him from journeyman writer to accidental fame as a playwright.

He happened on his most famous story after a crusading Houston TV reporter, Marvin Zindler, exposed the Chicken Ranch as a den of prostitution. Over a two-day period, Zindler said, he counted 484 men arriving at the unmarked building outside La Grange, Tex.

"Writing looks much easier than trapeze work, I know, until you sit before a typewriter long enough to realize it won't speak back unless spoken to," King wrote in "None Bit a Blockhead."

Meanwhile, the other Larry currently hosts his own show titled "Larry King Now" on the Internet network, Ora TV. British TV personality Piers Morgan took over his CNN spot when King left the network in December 2010.